Point of pride deserves cash

The University of Louisiana at Monroe points to its College of Pharmacy with pride.

A hub of activity, the research that goes on inside the Bienville Avenue building is among the most important occurring at ULM. Research on a special form of vitamin E holds promise in the battle against breast cancer, for instance, work that adds to the university's prestige while providing a glimmer of hope to those who suffer, or might soon suffer, from the disease. That research, led by Paul Sylvester, is nearing the stage of clinical trials.

Without question, the College of Pharmacy serves as ULM's calling card, its program of prestige. Statewide, it's what ULM is best known for, the only pharmacy program among the state universities.

Retailers refer to "lost leaders," items that cost money but draw traffic, and once in the store, shoppers will buy other things, offsetting the loss. Pharmacy gives ULM visibility, but it comes with a cost.

Running the state's only pharmacy program is an expensive proposition for ULM. Steep cuts in state funding and inequities in the funding formula have made this prestige degree a difficult one for the university to maintain.

ULM figures, for instance, the estimated cost of educating a single student working on a pharmacy doctorate for one year is $78,552, and typically the college has about 400 Pharm.D. students enrolled. The university, however, receives $41,830 from the state and self-generated funding to educate each student.

So, ULM loses $36,722 a year per student each year. Multiply that by 400, and we're talking big bucks, more than $12 million in losses.

That's the cost of ULM's prestige program, it's calling card.

ULM officials have worked hard to protect the accreditation requirements of the program by cutting deeper in other program areas. The College of Arts and Sciences, for instance, has seen cuts of almost $2.5 million over five years, while the pharmacy program has seen an increase.

But university officials have tried to communicate to officials controlling budgetary matters -lawmakers, the governor, the University of Louisiana System Board of Supervisors - about the danger of such underfunding.

Without some help, ULM officials will someday face the dilemma: is maintaining the College of Pharmacy - so vital to ULM's reputation and to the state's supply of pharmacists, - so important that they have to gut other areas, such as business administration, also a major factor in northeastern Louisiana's economy?

We hope it doesn't come to this. We hope our legislative delegation will begin to see legal solutions to funding of essential programs like this one, indeed adequately fund higher education in a way that universities can be secure that they can set a budget and rely on it. It does no good to have a prestige program if the rest of the university, necessary to prepare students to enter the College of Pharmacy, crumbles around it.

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Point of pride deserves cash

The University of Louisiana at Monroe points to its College of Pharmacy with pride.